Speaker Alfred Gaddis- A Bevin Boy

Alfred Gannas was the guest Speaker at the Club this week.  He told of his life as a “Bevin Boy”.  Due to a shortage of manpower in the Mines in W.W. 2 from July 1943 draftees for the mines were chosen by ballot.  Alfred had joined the Air Training Corps in preparation for joining the Royal Air Force but in 1994 his number came up and he was drafted and sent to work down the mines for three years.  He did his initial training for one month at Anfield Plain and then was sent to Ferryhill where he remained till his discharge. His pay as a trainee was two pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence and at Ferryhill three pounds, seven shillings.  Out of this pay he had to feed and cloth himself.  At the end of the week after all his outgoings he had half a crown to “spend and save”.  Mine work as always was dirty, dangerous and strenuous often involving crouching and crawling through mud and water with the constant threat of roof collapse.  He praised the care miners took of each other and the friendliness of the mining community.  The description of the hard working and intelligent pit ponies made the members realise how much was owed to them in the production of the coal taken for granted.  For the miner slaving away for one shilling and three pence a ton of coal produced by hand in those times seemed obscene. When conscription ended Bevin Boys were demobilised but there was a great disparity between them and what a grateful nation offered to the armed forces.